Thanks to the Xbox One S and all the new releases last month, total retail sales in the United States in August 2016 were up 1% year-over-year to $573.4 million, the NPD reveals. By category, hardware was down 6% to $178.1 million, console and portable software was up 8% to $273.7 million, PC software was up 18% to $14.2 million, and accessories were down 5% to $107 million.
As NPD analyst Sam Naji explained, “The release of strong new titles such as Madden NFL 17, No Man’s Sky, and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided bolstered console software dollar sales by 8 percent and this had helped to offset losses in spending elsewhere.” Despite the Xbox One S launch and another month of spending growth for the 3DS, it “was not enough to offset the decline in spending on the PS4, Wii U, and older consoles,” Naji said.
Sticking with hardware, the Xbox One S “helped to generate a 37 percent growth in unit sales and a 25 percent growth in dollar revenue for the Xbox One brand,” and it accounted for almost a third of all console hardware units sold. The 3DS, meanwhile, saw unit sales grow by 83% year-over-year and spending increase by $6 million.
The new Xbox One S controller also performed well, moving 79,000 units and topping the gamepad chart. “The new controller sold more units than the PS4 DualShock 4 Wireless Black Controller which had been the best-selling gamepad for some time,” Naji added. “The category was down as a whole due to the declines in last-gen console gamepad spending, which had decreased by 50 percent compared to last year.”
Madden NFL 17 was the best-selling game for August, but total spending was down 3% compared to Madden NFL 16. As for the other big new releases, No Man’s Sky and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, they outsold August 2015’s new releases, Gears of War Ultimate Edition and Until Dawn, by almost three times.
Here’s the top 10 best-selling games of August 2016 in the United States through physical and digital retailers, keeping in mind that digital sales weren’t tracked for Minecraft or No Man’s Sky, and Battle.net PC sales weren’t tracked for Overwatch:
- Madden NFL 17
- No Man’s Sky
- Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Overwatch
- Rainbow Six Siege
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 3
- LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens
- Minecraft
- Destiny: The Taken King
Do you think NBA 2K17 will top the software chart this month?
[Source: Games Industry, Venture Beat]
